fMRI of Hormonal Variation in Cognitive-Affective Processing

在美国国家科学基金会（National Science Foundation）的支持下，坎利博士及其同事将进行一项为期三年的调查，研究在认知和情绪相关的心理过程中，荷尔蒙状态的变化如何影响大脑的激活模式。具体来说，功能磁共振成像（fMRI）将被用来记录两组女性在认知和情感刺激下的大脑激活模式。一组女性将在自然月经周期的不同时间接受扫描。另一组将由绝经后妇女组成，她们将在三周的时间内接受雌激素/黄体酮或安慰剂（糖丸）的扫描。这些研究的结果将阐明我们对情绪的激素调节和这些状态背后的神经结构的理解。正如美国国家科学院（National Academy of Sciences）呼吁对性别差异进行更多生物医学研究所表明的那样，人们对大脑功能的一些基本方面所知甚少。这项工作不仅将填补基础神经科学的知识空白，而且还可能指导未来的临床研究，以了解情绪障碍（如抑郁症）发病率的显著性别差异，女性患抑郁症的人数是男性的四倍。此外，建议的工作可能有利于绝经后妇女权衡激素替代疗法对脑功能的影响。大部分人可能会考虑这样的决定，因为据估计，普通女性至少有一半的成年生活将处于循环雌激素水平下降的状态。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Canli and colleagues will conduct a three-year investigation into how changes in hormonal state affect brain activation patterns during cognitive and emotion-related psychological processes. Specifically, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) will be used to record brain activation patterns in response to cognitive and emotional stimuli in two groups of women. One group will consist of women who will be scanned at different times in the naturally occurring menstrual cycle. The other group will consist of post-menopausal women who will be scanned during a three-week period of estrogen/progesterone or placebo (sugar pill) administration. The results of these studies will illuminate our understanding of hormonal regulation of mood and the neural structures that underlie these states. Very little is known about some fundamental aspects of brain function as a function of gender, as suggested by a call by the National Academy of Sciences to devote more biomedical research to sex differences. This work will not only fill a knowledge gap in basic neuroscience, but may also guide future clinical studies to understand the striking sex differences in the incidence of mood disorders such as depression, which strikes as many as four times as many women than men. Furthermore, the proposed work may be of benefit for postmenopausal women weighing the consequences of hormone replacement therapy on brain function. Such decisions will likely be contemplated by large segments of the population, as it is estimated that the average woman will spend at least half her adult life with decreased levels of circulating estrogen.